Trailer Park Rhapsody
Summary Trailer Park Rhapsody is the sole full-length album released by 80-Proof Throwdown, a metal band from Cape Coral, Florida. It contains ten songs and eight hidden "stupid shit" tracks at the end of the CD. The album featured several guest appearances by friends of the band, both on the music tracks and the "stupid shit" tracks. It was independently released by the band on October 31, 2006. Standout Tracks and Guest Appearances The disc opens with "B.I.H.", an acronym for "Burn In Hell". Main vocals are performed by Dan Savage, a longtime friend of singer/guitarist/programmer Mike Black, although Black's voice can be heard on the chorus chanting the word "burn". "B.I.H." was one of the more popular tracks from Trailer Park Rhapsody due to its use of clean guitars at the beginning section of the song, its fiery anger during the main section, and its darkly beautiful guitar solo at the end (which singer/guitarist Beerkeg Brandon performed). "Cattle", the second song on the disc, also featured Savage's vocals on the chorus. This track was considered one of the album's better tracks because of its simple yet extremely heavy guitar riffs and straight-forward, unashamed anger. The song was later slightly altered and re-recorded by Khaos Faktory, another of Mike Black's bands and spiritual successor to 80-Proof Throwdown, and released on its debut album Sinthetic Alchemy in 2008. "Father", which features Black's friend Brandi Typhoid doing female vocals on the chorus, was probably the most industrial-style song on Trailer Park Rhapsody. Typhoid was credited as "Brandi Famous" in the CD's liner notes. "Trailer Park Rhapsody", the album's title track, contains a phone conversation between Black, Casterline, and Sailor Barry at the beginning of the song. The final riffs of the song were recorded the day before Casterline left for Marine Corps boot camp. "The Beer Song", the album's most popular track, features main vocals by Friggin' J, Casterline's cousin and Black's close friend. The song was written and recorded on the spot during one of the many drunken parties at Black's house. Casterline came up with a simple riff for it, Black slapped together an equally simple beat, and the lyrics were written as the song progressed. The most probable reason this song became the most popular on the album was because it was a hilarious comic relief in what is otherwise a brutal album. Sailor Barry can also be heard speaking and chanting the word "beer!" throughout the song. "At The Gates", Trailer Park Rhapsody's darkest and heaviest song, is the only song on the album with a guitar solo written and performed by Mike Black. "Bleeding Empty" is the only instrumental song on the album. It was actually a leftover from Casterline and Black's failed metal project All Hope Lost, but Black thought the light acoustic-guitar track was a nice addition to the heavy and aggressive album. "Raising Hell", the album's final music track, is also the only one on the disc that uses keyboards. Black somehow managed to figure out the guitar notes on his keyboard while so drunk that he was stumbling, and recorded them with a broken microphone. Savage also performs vocals on this track. "Raising Hell" was planned to be Trailer Park Rhapsody's single, however due to budgetary restrictions a single was never released. Bonus Tracks There were eight humorous "stupid shit" tracks on the CD, which were a collection of skits and jokes that the band played around with before and during the recording of Trailer Park Rhapsody. The first was of these was a skit called "Shao Kahn vs. Corholio", which Black created by splicing spoken word samples from the movies Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Beavis and Butt-head Do America, in which Shao Kahn and Beavis (as Cornholio) fight each other, with Beavis winning in the end. The next was "The Mormon Skit", about a Mormon door-knocker bothering Black while he's drunk, then summons the Devil and drags the Mormon into hell as Black chuckles "Huh huh, later dude!" The remaining tracks were of a fictional AM radio talk show called "KCOK Radio", with Friggin' J hosting and Casterline playing several parts, including the studio's retarded janitor Bob, the station's unnamed manager, and an angry redneck who beats up Friggin' J at the end. Production There were only 100 copies of Trailer Park Rhapsody manufactured. Initially, Black sold the CD's for $5 each, but ended up giving many of them away for free. They were released at one record store in North Fort Myers, Florida and as of yet the disc has not been re-released, although Black has said that it is well within the realm of possibility that it eventually will be, if the band is ever re-established. Track Listing 1. B.I.H. 2. Cattle 3. Father 4. Trailer Park Rhapsody 5. Virgin No More 6. The Beer Song 7. Backstab 8. At The Gates 9. Bleeding Empty 10. Raising Hell 11. Shao Kahn vs. Cornholio 12. The Mormon Skit 13. KCOK part 1 14. KCOK part 2 15. KCOK part 3 16. KCOK part 4 17. "Analex" commercial 18. KCOK part 4 Links Official 80-Proof Throwdown Myspace http://www.myspace.com/80proofthrowdown Official Khaos Faktory Myspace http://www.myspace.com/khaosfaktory